1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed in general to the field of electronic distribution of software in computer networks. In one aspect, the present invention relates to the management of software component installation, configuration and deployment across a distributed network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Software products are increasingly designed to use or re-use existing software modules or components. For example, components (sometimes also known as middleware)—such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) modules such as the Tivoli Directory Server (TDS) or application servers/J2EE containers as provided by WebSphere Application Server (WAS) modules—may be embedded as part of a software product, or may be required as a product dependency, even if not embedded. In such cases, the installation and configuration of such components as part of the installation of the software product can increase the complexity and development costs to the installation of the software product, particularly where new components are added to the software product. An example of such a software product is the Tivoli Access Manager for eBusiness (TAMeB) which is designed to leverage a number of components, such as WAS and LDAP, which must be installed in anticipation of the installation of TAMeB product. When new components are added to the TAMeB product, the TAMeB product must either separately include the installation/configuration of the components into the TAMeB installation (increasing the complexity and development cost of the TAMeB installation by requiring the re-writing of the TAMeB product's installation process without the re-use of the component's existing installation/configuration process), or require that the components be pre-installed independently (increasing the complexity of the overall installation for the end user). The complexity and cost associated with integrating or coupling the independent installation/configuration processing is especially acute in scenarios where the new components do not share the same installation/configuration platform with the main software product (e.g., ISMP versus response file/CLI scripts).
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method of leveraging the use of existing software components while reducing the complexity and cost associated with separately embedding the installation, configuration and deployment of such components in the installation of the main software product. In addition, there is a need for a system and method to efficiently reuse software components without imposing the tight integration/coupling requirements of an independent installation/configuration processing. There is also a need for a way to leverage the installation/configuration processing of an individual component into the installation of a software product, even when the software product and component do share the same installation/configuration platform. Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional installation/configuration processing solutions will become apparent to one of skill in the art after reviewing the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings and detailed description which follow.